Separate Docs and Sheets apps are now required for creating and editing documents

A new version of the Google Drive app hit the Play Store and App Store on Friday. In a move Google had telegraphed a couple of days earlier with the release of standalone Docs and Sheets apps for both platforms, the latest Drive app no longer lets you edit documents.

The Galaxy S5's display impresses a well renowned testing firm

It looks like Samsung may have yet other bragging point -- best smartphone display in the world. That was the determination DisplayMate's Dr. Raymond M. Soneira came to after an extensive round of lab tests and measurements, in which he concluded that the Galaxy S5 sports the best smartphone display he's ever tested. It was an easy conclusion to come to after the Galaxy S5 left in its wake a bunch of broken records.

Budget smartphone could be a hot holiday item

Motorola has a holiday surprise for the mobile crowd. The company announced that its unlocked and affordable Moto G smartphone is now available to purchase in GSM form from Motorola's website with no contract, no SIM lock, and an unlocked bootloader for $179 with 8GB of storage or $199 with 16GB of storage. Those are full retail prices - you own the device outright for less than the subsidized cost of most high-end smartphones.

Tablets will make up half of the overall PC market next year

Desktops aren't going anywhere, but neither are tablets, the latter of which are forecast to out-ship all other PC form factors combined to account for nearly half of the client PC market, according to Canalys. Tablet PC shipments grew 40 percent in the third quarter of 2013, which helped the overall PC market grow 18 percent even though traditional desktop and notebook shipments declined. Amid all this growth is a window of opportunity to monetize the frenzy, just like Intel did when netbooks were all the craze.

Airline to deploy as many as 11,000 units

In a major shot in the arm for Microsoft’s struggling Windows RT platform, Delta Air Lines has announced that later this year it will begin deploying the company’s upcoming Surface 2 tablet across its Boeing 757 and Boeing 767 fleets with the aim of “replacing heavy paper-based flight kits containing navigational charts and aircraft operating and reference manuals.” It expects to complete the rollout by the end of 2014, by when a total of 11,000 such Surface 2 electronic paper bags will have found their way into its cockpits.

Redmond is offering a minimum of $200 for “gently used” iPads

Microsoft is currently running a limited-time iPad trade-in offer, allowing people to bring in their “gently used” iPad 2,3,or 4 into select Microsoft retail outlets across the U.S. and Canada and walk out with a Microsoft store gift card worth a minimum of $200. While the offer has been live for well over a week now, the good news is that there’s still plenty of time left.

High end specs abound

Google's hardware partners figured out that lower priced slates are where the real money is at, but if you're more interested in a premium, non-iPad tablet and are willing to pay more for a higher end device, Asus has your back. The company introduced its new Transformer Pad TF701T, a 10.1-inch Android tablet rocking a 2560x1600 resolution and Nvidia's latest and greatest Tegra 4 quad-core processor with 72-core GeForce GPU.

A smaller, less expensive Surface

Piles of unsold Surface inventory are sitting in Redmond, and part of the reason for that is because it's extremely tough to sell a $499+ non-iPad tablet to the masses, a lesson Google's hardware partners found out early on. That doesn't mean Windows 8 tablets are a bust, they just need to come down in price and have more apps available. Toshiba is taking care of the first part by launching the appropriately named Encore.

Surface returns with Tegra 4 in tow

After the clusterhump surrounding Microsoft's Surface strategy that resulted in the Redmond outfit taking a $900 million charge on unsold inventory, you might not think Steve Ballmer and company would be all that eager to release a second generation slate. Not only is there strong evidence to support the notion that Surface 2 is coming, but there are even details on what hardware will be inside.

Lauds Microsoft for being bold with Windows 8

Despite all the flak that Microsoft has drawn in recent times over Windows 8, its strategy of pursuing design continuity across traditional PCs and smart devices has won it a few admirers as well — some of them from unlikely quarters.